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'AITA for telling my MIL we put the things she bought for our baby by the side of the road?' UPDATED

'AITA for telling my MIL we put the things she bought for our baby by the side of the road?' UPDATED

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"AITA for telling my MIL we put all the things she bought for the baby by the side of the road?"

I expect this will divide opinion so need a balanced perspective. My (29F) husband (32M) has a stepmother (55F) called T. T is an over-gifter and always goes over the top despite us asking to only get one or two things. Its quantity over quality, not to our tastes and rarely something we want or need. It takes a long time sorting what to donate and what to bin.

Sometimes the stuff is visibly dirty from being in their house (they live in squalor.) T also has mental health issues, she can be emotionally volatile and uses her vulnerability as a weapon.

We are new parents to a week old baby. Family has been supportive and helpful. T has been very over the top. She wants to see the baby immediately and drop off some gifts, we said we don't feel comfortable with that (they live far away and just had covid) they were upset.

Today we get a text saying "baby stuff is outside." We find 6 huge bin bags, 3 large boxes and a bunch of smaller bags full of stuff. Looking through we find dirty, stained blankets and clothes, and other stuff we have no need or use for, they never asked us what we need.

Husband is angry, I write a text to T: "Hi T, this is a lot of stuff. We're grateful you want to provide for your grandchild, but we asked you not to get too much. A new baby does not need a lot, we already have a lot of the things we need and we do not have space to store any more. We also asked you not to travel to bring it.

We are hurt and disappointed you went against what we asked, even though it is for a kind gesture. Your generous nature is one of the things we love most about you. The most generous thing you can do is respect our wishes. From now on please ask what we need and get only what we have asked for so we can make sure we only have what we need."

I get no response. After a while I start looking through the stuff and I'm angry. Angry at the amount, angry at the quality and angry that they went against our wishes. I send another text:

"T, I have just seen the extent of it. You have gone against our wishes and gone too far this time. We have put it all by the road and posted it to facebook as free to collect for someone who needs it. We are hurt and disappointed by your actions. You need to think about how you respect our wishes regarding (baby) in the future."

Her response was that they will stay away from us because clearly we don't want them in the baby's life. This is not what we want. I understand her gift giving comes from love, I also think its due to trauma in her past. She's not a bad person.

I feel awful for telling her what we did. Imagine buying all that stuff, then told it has been put by the road. At the same time I want to give her a wake up call. That she would choose not be in her grandchild's life rather than respect our wishes is upsetting. Was the second text message justified or was it too much?

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

She later shared this update:

Update: I wrote this post last night. The update today is I had a call from the council and my FIL has reported me for fly tipping. I had to explain to the council the stuff was on my driveway and collected as part of a private sale. My FIL is equal in his part in this. ETA: fly tipping is the illegal dumping of waste in a place where waste should not be dumped. It is a criminal act punishable by a fine. In the message I told them we put the stuff "by the road", this would be illegal. Actually the stuff never left our property, someone from facebook collected it for free from our driveway, perfectly legal.

Sources: Reddit
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